- Myanmar: Junta to free thousands of prisoners in annual amnesty
Source: Deutsche Welle [German state media]
“The Myanmar junta will release more than 6,000 prisoners to mark Independence Day, the state media reported on Sunday. Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing has granted amnesty to 6,134 imprisoned Myanmar nationals, the National Defence and Security Council said in a statement. The amnesty also includes 52 foreigners who will be released and deported from Myanmar. … The amnesty comes during a monthlong, three-stage election process that critics say is designed to create the impression of legitimacy for the junta’s rule.” (01/04/26)
https://www.dw.com/en/myanmar-to-free-thousands-of-prisoners-in-annual-amnesty/a-75382196
- UK, French regimes bomb suspected Islamic State arms dump
Source: The New Arab [UK]
“Britain’s and France’s air forces conducted a joint operation on Saturday evening to bomb a suspected underground arms cache previously used by the Islamic State group in Syria, Britain’s defence ministry said. Western aircraft have been conducting patrols to stop a resurgence of the Islamist militant group that ruled parts of Syria until 2019. Intelligence analysis identified an underground facility believed to be used to store weapons and explosives in mountains north of Palmyra, Britain said.” (01/04/26)
https://www.newarab.com/news/uk-france-bomb-suspected-islamic-state-arms-dump-syria
- North Korea: Regime launches ballistic missiles toward sea ahead of South Korean pol’s visit to China
Source: Associated Press
“North Korea launched multiple ballistic missiles toward its eastern waters Sunday, its neighbors said, just hours before South Korea’s president left for China for talks expected to cover North Korea’s nuclear program. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement it detected several ballistic missile launches from North Korea’s capital region around 7:50 a.m. It said the missiles flew about 900 kilometers (560 miles) and that South Korea and U.S. authorities were analyzing details of the launches. South Korea’s Defense Ministry noted the launches violated U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban any ballistic activities by North Korea.” (01/094/26)
https://apnews.com/article/south-north-korea-missile-76a8850484c5f969e56b797246877c61
- Astronomers detect rare “free floating” exoplanet 10,000 light-years from Earth
Source: Space.com
“Rogue planets — worlds that drift through space alone without a star — largely remain a mystery to scientists. Now, astronomers have for the first time confirmed the existence of one of these starless worlds by pinpointing its distance and mass — a rogue planet roughly the size of Saturn nearly 10,000 light-years from Earth. Planets are typically found bound to one or more stars. However, in 2000, astronomers detected the first signs of a “rogue planet” — a free-floating world that orbited no star. Then, in 2024, researchers detected an object distorting the light from a distant star, simultaneously from both Earth and space using several ground-based observatories as well as the European Space Agency’s now-retired Gaia space telescope. These observations helped scientists estimate that the object was a newfound world found about 9,950 light-years from Earth in the direction of the Milky Way’s center, with a mass about 70 times larger than Earth. (Saturn, on the other hand, is about 95 Earth masses.)” (01/02/26)
- Tesla sales fall to lowest point since 2022 after Elon Musk backlash
Source: Axios
“Tesla vehicle sales declined for a second consecutive year in 2025, hitting their lowest point since 2022. Tesla vehicle sales are critical to funding CEO Elon Musk’s AI ambitions, including humanoid robots and self-driving cars. The company on Friday reported a 8.6% drop in deliveries — a close approximation to sales — to 1.64 million for the year. The full-year drop came despite an unexpected boost to sales in the third quarter as consumers rushed to buy EVs to qualify for the federal tax cut before it expired at the end of September. Deliveries are now down 9.5% since their all-time high in 2023.” (01/02/26)
- January 3: The “Peace President’s” Latest Date Which Will Live in Infamy
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“The very best possible outcome of the attack is that the Venezuelan people rise up, overthrow the current regime, and replace it with something more to their liking — but probably not to the Washington, DC regime’s liking. Which they could have done at any time, without Trump’s help, had they chosen to. The more likely outcome is that US forces will install a puppet/quisling regime to rule Venezuela to Trump’s (and Big Oil’s) liking, then spend years bleeding American blood and treasure into the place before an ignominious departure (with or without formal surrender). What’s NOT likely is that Trump and his accomplices will be removed from office/power, charged under US law, or extradited for trial under international law. That’s a shame.” (01/03/26)
- Trump’s gunboat diplomacy is a betrayal of populism
Source: spiked
by Brendan O’Neill“So regime change is back? Having for years mocked the wasteful, lethal Clinton-Bush-Obama crusades against states they hated, now President Trump has carried out a regime decapitation of his own. Having installed as his director of national intelligence one of the most stinging critics of regime-change wars – Tulsi Gabbard – now Trump launches not quite a regime-change war but certainly a regime-change strike. Having said MAGA would end these ruinous excursions and prioritise the needs of the American working class, now Trump goes south and does what so many administrations before his did: topples a Latin American dictator.” (01/03/25)
https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/01/03/trumps-gunboat-diplomacy-is-a-betrayal-of-populism/
- Monroe Doctrine: the Bad Neighbor Returns
Source: CounterPunch
by Jeffrey Sommers“President Trump signaled the Monroe Doctrine’s return from the start of his second term. A volatile mix of geopolitical, hemispheric and local politics was in play. The world’s largest reserves of ‘Texas Tea’ turned the wandering Eye of Sauron in Washington on the birthplace of the Bolivarian Revolution. The Trump Administration intends to juice US and global economic growth by reducing energy costs, as we saw in the 1980s and 1990s when oil prices dropped. Fossil fuels are the Trump Administration’s preferred choice of dirty energy to fuel the AI boom, which the US intends to lead. Oil-laden tankers departing from Venezuela en route to China are not part of the program. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration treats the American public like turnip truck rubes.” (01/03/26)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/01/03/monroe-doctrine-the-bad-neighbor-returns-2/
- Maduro in US Custody: Why Regime Change in Venezuela Will Fail Again
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey“We’ve seen this movie before, and it usually ends with a ‘To Be Continued’ screen that no one actually wants to watch. This isn’t a victory for freedom; it’s a dangerous expansion of the ‘World Policeman’ doctrine that has consistently failed us for decades.” (01/04/26)
https://palmbeachexaminer.substack.com/p/maduro-in-us-custody-why-regime-change
- Thoughts on the Capture of Maduro and Trump’s Attack on Venezuela
Source: The Volokh Conspiracy
by Ilya Somin“Maduro is a brutal dictator who is getting what he deserves. But Trump’s actions are still illegal, because lacking proper congressional authorization. Whether they result in a beneficial regime change in Venezuela remains to be seen.” (01/03/26)
- Maduro Is Gone — Venezuela’s Dictatorship Is Not
Source: Persuasion
by Quico Toro“Venezuelans today are waking up to an unrecognizable country. Like every dictatorship, Maduro’s had invested heavily in the myth of its own invincibility. And yet the regime is very much still in place, albeit in a weird, decapitated state. State TV is still running regime propaganda, Vice President (soon, one surmises, to shed the ‘vice’) Delcy Rodríguez is still fulminating on behalf of the Venezuelan government, the hardline interior minister Diosdado Cabello is still giving fire-breathing speeches condemning American aggression, Maduro’s notoriously repressive attorney general, Tarek William Saab, is still out mining the night’s events for propaganda points. The entire ghastly apparatus of state repression that Hugo Chávez built and Nicolás Maduro perfected appears, for now, to be fully in control of the country. Maduro is gone. It’s tempting to think that, without him, the regime will implode. But Maduro’s was never the kind of personalist system that depends on a single leader.” (01/03/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/maduro-is-gonevenezuelas-dictatorship
- Polymarket Returns to US Users After a Nearly 3-Year Hiatus
Source: Reason
by Jack Nicastro“Talk is cheap — but Polymarket lets you put your money where your mouth is. Nearly four years after being shut down by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the online betting company that allows you to stake money on future events has become CFTC-compliant and relaunched for U.S. residents at the end of 2025. Not everybody is thrilled about Polymarket’s return. Commentators across the political spectrum have warned that betting, on sports or on anything, can cause financial and psychological harm, especially for those with a history of addiction. It’s prudent to abstain from speculating with money you can’t afford to lose, but Americans should still welcome Polymarket’s comeback.” (for publication 0/26)
- Trump goes monster-hunting, untainted by a whiff of legality
Source: Washington Post
by George F Will“That Nicolás Maduro is a monster is patent, as was the illegitimacy of his government, which disdained respect for the consent of the governed. But the urgent argument begins, not ends, with those two facts. Heartbreak, a risk inherent in puppy love, today afflicts those who believed this president’s reiterated disparagements of U.S. involvement in regime changes, wars of choice and nation-building. The lovers will recover. … When Theodore Roosevelt asked Attorney General Philander Knox to concoct a legal justification for the unsavory U.S. measures that enabled construction of the Panama Canal, Knox replied, ‘Oh, Mr. President, do not let so great an achievement suffer from any taint of legality.’” (01/03/26)
- Israel And Its Supporters Deliberately Foment Hate And Division In Our Society
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“I’ve noticed a lot of angry comments underneath my posts these past few days which bizarrely mention the words ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslims’ completely out of the blue. ‘Why don’t you turn your attention sometimes to the genocidal intent of the radical Muslims, or does that suit your racist narrative?’ reads one tweet. ‘What can you say about Islamic Jihadists Muslims murdering thousands of Christians in Sudan and other parts of Africa?’ reads another. ‘The muslims must be irradicated’, reads another. There are too many examples to quote here, but here’s what’s so funny about all this: I haven’t been saying anything about Islam or Muslims on Twitter — I’ve been tweeting about Israel. Hasbarists just babble about Islam when they can’t defend Israel’s actions.” (01/03/25)
- A Real Test for New FDA Reforms
Source: Independent Institute
by Raymond J March“National public health policy under the leadership of Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made no shortage of headlines in 2025. As a short list, RFK made controversial statements about vaccines, vowed (but failed) to find the root cause of autism, initiated efforts to ban some food dyes, cut funding, cut employment, misused AI, and tried to eliminate medical scientists from publishing in select academic journals based on their funding. Less importantly, he also wears jeans when he works out. In contrast, the Food and Drug Administration, easily the most powerful sub-agency overseen by the HHS and RFK, has had a quiet 2025. It began the process of banning red dye #3 in food products, reassessed some safety standards for cosmetics, and implemented a rule now requiring complete safety disclosures in drug advertisements. Most of the FDA’s planned major reforms are still underway.” (01/02/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/01/02/new-fda-reforms/
- Asia giants find warmer ties may cool conflict
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“Relations between China and India – the world’s two most populous nations, which also rank among its top five economies – have been fraught and frosty for decades, starting with armed conflict in 1962 along their shared Himalayan border and, more recently, a serious clash in 2020. But going into this new year, there are encouraging signs of a gradual thaw between the two nuclear-armed Asian powers. Even this slight warming – which one Indian diplomat described to a news magazine as a “state of armed coexistence” along disputed border areas – helps temper potential military flash points. On the political and economic fronts, the prospects are somewhat brighter. The leaders of both countries have met in recent months; flights and tourist travel are slowly resuming. And officials are exploring avenues for economic diversification and integration – moves that could boost regional growth as well as strengthen Global South economies jolted by the unexpectedly steep U.S. trade tariffs of 2025.” (01/02/25)
- Even Elon’s Techno-Utopia Won’t Make Money Meaningless
Source: The Daily Economy
by Peter C Earle“Elon Musk recently put forth a bold vision: that within two decades, AI will automate virtually all productive activity, work will be optional, and money will lose meaning. Coming from Musk, such pronouncements carry gravitas. And noticeably, the expressed vision unsurprisingly dovetails neatly with Musk’s admittedly exciting entrepreneurial visions. Yet variants of those claims have circulated for years, usually without reference to economic theory, institutional constraints, or political risk. Rigorously examining those assertions is essential to decouple technological optimism from the practical realities that will shape the next two decades.” (01/02/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/even-elons-techno-utopia-wont-make-money-meaningless/
- This Is a Blatant Illegal Act of War Against Venezuela by Trump
Source: Common Dreams
by Medea Benjamin & Michelle Ellner“Overnight, the United States government bombed civilian and military sites across Venezuela and illegally kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. These are blatant and illegal acts of war by the Trump Administration. This act of aggression is a continuation of US attempts to seize and plunder Venezuela’s natural resources and undermine Venezuela’s sovereignty as well as the sovereignty of other countries in Latin America. This war also does not reflect the will of the people. Nearly 70% of Americans oppose another war and reject the endless cycle of military interventions carried out in their name. … The U.S. now claims Maduro will face ‘criminal charges’ in a US court. This sham proceeding will be done under the auspices of ‘drug trafficking’ — but we know it has nothing to do with that, and everything to do with Trump’s policy of regime change.” (01/03/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-venezuela-2674845101
- Pink Flame of Liberty, 01/03/26
Source: Pink Flame of Liberty
“Tyranny is CO-OPTING the language of Liberty and Freedom.” (01/03/26)
- Unattended Baggage, episode 323
Source: Unattended Baggage
“There’s oil in them there drug countries!” (01/03/26)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-323-theres-oil-in-them-there
- System Update, 01/03/26
Source: System Update
“Trump Bombs Venezuela, Removes Maduro.” (01/03/26)
https://rumble.com/v73te0s-trump-bombs-venezuela-removes-maduro.html